Official Roster of Teams, Advisory Board Announced in the $7M Shell
Ocean Discovery XPRIZE

32 Teams from 22 Countries Compete to Advance Rapid and Unmanned
Ocean Exploration; Leading Oceanography and Ocean Technology Experts to
Advise in Competition

October 13, 2016 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--XPRIZE,
the world’s leader in designing and managing incentive competitions to
solve humanity’s grand challenges, today announced a total of 32 teams
from 22 countries will compete to win the $7M
Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, a three-year global competition
challenging teams to advance ocean technologies for rapid, unmanned and
high-resolution ocean exploration and discovery. An Advisory Board of
leading experts in the fields of oceanography, Geographical Information
Systems (GIS), underwater technologies and imagery, also announced
today, will advise the Ocean Discovery XPRIZE.

Competing teams hail from Canada, China, France, Germany, Ghana, India,
Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New
Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand,
United Kingdom and the United States, as well as a virtual organization
representing 34 countries. Among the teams competing are university
teams of undergraduate and graduate students, non-profits, startups, and
professional scientists and engineers. A complete listing of competing
teams is posted
on the XPRIZE site.

“Our teams and Advisory Board members are joined in a passionate mission
to develop deep-sea underwater robots for autonomous, fast and
high-resolution ocean exploration, and the success of this Prize will
allow humanity to fully map and discover the wonders of the deep sea
like never before,” said Jyotika
Virmani, Ph.D., prize lead and senior director with XPRIZE’s Energy
and Environment Group. “We believe the innovation that emerges from the
Ocean Discovery XPRIZE will truly push the boundaries of next-generation
ocean technologies.”

“Innovation is the true game changer, and the ability to create radical
breakthroughs in ocean discovery is the cornerstone for doing things
differently and better than before,” said David Schewitz, Shell vice
president of geophysics for the Americas. “XPRIZE competitions can help
turn ideas into reality, and we’re looking forward to the exciting ideas
and new surprises that the teams will reveal over the course of this
competition.”

The competition will take place in two rounds of testing over three
years. Next, competing teams will submit technical documentation by this
December, at which point a panel of expert judges will down-select up to
25 teams to continue to develop their solutions for the first round of
testing.

During Round 1: Up to 25 teams, who will be announced February 2017,
will proceed to Round 1 of testing, in which their entries will
operate at a depth of 2,000 meters, aim to map 20 percent of the 500 km2
competition area at 5.0 meters resolution, and identify and image at
least five archeological, biological or geological features at any
depth, all within 16 hours.

During Round 2: Based on their performance in Round 1, up to 10
finalist teams will be selected to continue to Round 2 of testing, in
which their entries will operate at a depth of 4,000 meters, aim to
map 50 percent of the 500 km2 competition area at 5.0
meters resolution, and find and image and identify and image at least
ten archeological, biological or geological features at any depth, all
within 24 hours.

The teams that proceed past Round 1 will split a $1M milestone prize
purse. At the end of the competition, a $4M Grand Prize and $1M Second
Place Prize will be awarded to the teams that receive the top scores for
demonstrating the highest resolution seafloor mapping, after meeting all
minimum requirements for speed, autonomy and depth. As part of the total
$7M prize purse, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) is offering a $1M bonus prize to teams that demonstrate their
technology can “sniff out” a specified object in the ocean by tracing a
biological and chemical signal to its source.

"The goal of the $1M NOAA bonus prize is to aid NOAA's marine resource
management responsibilities by identifying technologies capable of
detecting and tracking sources of marine pollution, locating deep-ocean
hydrothermal vents and methane seeps, and monitoring marine life for
scientific research and conservation efforts,” said Alan Leonardi,
director of NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.

The Ocean Discovery XPRIZE also announced the formation of an Advisory
Board of academic and technical experts, comprised of:

Shell has been a technology pioneer for more than 100 years, and has
come up with many industry-transforming “firsts” to deliver energy its
customers and partners need. Since 2007, Shell has spent more than $1
billion annually on research and development. In 2014, our research and
development expenditures were $1.2 billion. Shell’s technical and
engineering staff amount to more than 43,000.

Shell companies have operations in more than 70 countries and
territories with businesses including oil and gas exploration and
production; production and marketing of liquefied natural gas and gas to
liquids; manufacturing, marketing and shipping of oil products and
chemicals and renewable energy projects. Royal Dutch Shell plc is
incorporated in England and Wales, has its headquarters in The Hague and
is listed on the London, Amsterdam, and New York stock exchanges. For
further information, visit www.shell.com.

About National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a
science-based federal agency within the Department of Commerce with
regulatory, operational and information service responsibilities with a
presence in every state and U.S. territories. NOAA's mission is to
understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the
depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and
manage coastal and marine resources. For more information, visit www.noaa.gov.